On the side panel I glazed all parts which are not going to be covered by foil.

Then I mounted the side panel to check if it fits. I switched its position a little bit to the inner side to get the whole case covered by the plate. I used special mandrils to mark the spots for the wood plugs.

Sidepanel in place und looking good!

Small gift for myself:

My old X-Fi Extreme music isnít supported any longer, and uses the old PCI port. Changing it later would mean to have to rework one of my selfmade covers.

Yesterday I made two very annoying mistakes. I forgot the resistors when I soldered the reservoir-LED-stripe. After realizing this, my plan was to solder the resistors into the extension cable. But yesterday I forgot about it and tested the LED-strip. It exploded! Good for me, all fragments flew into another direction. I build a new LED stripe late in the evening with included resistors. Tested it today, and what should I say? I mixed up blue and green at one of the LEDs. So I have to do this LED-stripe a third timeÖ

Long time no see! Bought a house a few month ago and had a lot of renovations to do.
My Floating Cave survived all the moving without any harms. It just got very dusty 
Started my re-entry with the motherboard. I decided to remove all the blue. All the RGB-LEDs donít make any sense, if thereís already a color theme.
The status quo:

A lot of blue to remove. First I removed all heat sinks.

The heat gun was very useful for the RAM heat spreaders.

I cleaned the aluminium parts and used hot sodium hydroxide to remove the anodization. Worked very well. But quite dangerous, always wear protection gloves, safety glasses and respiratory protection. This is why I couldnít manage to take some photos.
I colored the plastic parts of the motherboard with a synthetic resin varnish. Iíll have to do it a second time to clear all the imperfections.

Decided to not use the RAM heat spreaders again. They do not fit into my design concept. In my opinion, they look way better naked.

I removed the old HDD and replaced it with a Samsung 970 evo m.2. Needed an adapter for it. Luckily, there is one who matches my design concept nearly perfectly.

Time keeps short the next months, cannot say when Iím going to do the next update!

Had a free Saturday which i spend on the Floating Cave. The MB got a second painting. Now thereís no blue left (with mounted components). I soldered a custom made extension to the connectors for power-button etc.

The color of the sound card did not match the theme. First I removed the cover.

The sound processor got painted. A 3D-foil was used for masking the cover.

Unfortunately, the disc has a slight reddish tinge. Let's see, maybe I'll exchange them. I simply removed the two red illumination LEDs on the soundcard.
Then we went to the graphics card: the extensions of the power supply got sleeved and completed.

I also replaced the screws of the self-made cover.

Was shopping and have increased my assortment stainless steel screws. But it was especially hard to find a few special screws that I needed for the case.

Here again the status quo of the case:

Actually, not much is missing for the move of the computer. I have already tested the majority of the loop in order to test the tightness of the components. Especially the quick couplings that were now dry for a long time. The good news: everything is tight. But I had big problems with the bleeding. The position of the pump with the small elevation loop compared to the AGB is conceivably bad. Inlet and outlet of the AGB at the same height prevent a clean full running of the lower components. As a test, I mounted the inlet at the lid. It was much better. Now I have to see if I manage to get in the lid a nice solution for water intake.